H2O.ai Gets $20M in VC for Predictive Analytics Platform

Using the platform, data scientists and developers import powerful algorithms into their applications to predict fraud, customer churn, and so on.

H2O.ai, which makes a new-gen machine-learning platform for building predictive analytics into applications, has closed a $20 million Series B funding round.
Paxion Capital Partners led the round with existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Transamerica Corporation and new participant Capital One Growth Ventures joining. The company made the announcement Nov. 9 at its H2O World conference at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.
The Series B brings Mountain View-based H2O.ai's total amount of funding raised to $34 million.
H2O.ai provides an open source machine learning platform that makes it easy to build smart applications. Using the platform, data scientists and developers import powerful algorithms into their applications to predict fraud, customer churn, and so on at over 5,000 organizations and its customers include the likes of Cisco, PayPal and Progressive.

H2O.ai said it will use its Series B raise to scale the company's sales, marketing and customer success teams and to support growth in customers and community. Funds also will be used to build an ecosystem of partners on the H2O platform and its delivery via its Steam and Sparkling Water products.

"I'd be shocked if every company in the world wouldn't benefit from using H2O," said Michael Marks, who transformed Flextronics into a multi-billion dollar giant and helped build phenomenal growth companies like Zappos. Marks, founding partner of Paxion and Walden Riverwood Capital, will join the H2O.ai board of directors.
H2O.ai's machine learning platform, H2O, has experienced download growth of 300 percent year-over-year, with active installations in more than 5,000 organizations, the company said. More than 10 percent of the world's data scientists now use H2O to create and deploy predictive models, the company claimed.
"Algorithms are transforming every business," said Sri Ambati, co-founder and CEO of H2O.ai. "H2O reduces time to insight without the cost and lock-in of proprietary stacks and operationalizes data science through data products and smart applications. This funding will support the explosive growth in our customer community and the application developer ecosystem in key verticals emerging from the open source platform."
This year alone H2O.ai signed 25 new customers, including AT&T, Comcast, Kaiser Permanente, McKesson, Walgreens, Capital One, Progressive, Transamerica Corporation and Zurich Insurance Group, the company said.